


Masked

by CrownePrince



Category: Trolls (2016), Trolls (Movies 2016 2020), Trolls World Tour (2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Dystopia, Fluff, Gay, Gay Male Character, M/M, Masks, Pandemics, Post-Apocalypse, Rescue, Romance, Tragedy, Virus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26801326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrownePrince/pseuds/CrownePrince
Summary: After a danger much worse than bergens brings the downfall of Troll society, Branch and Hickory embark on a journey to find other survivors and discover their friendship becoming something more along the way.
Relationships: Branch/Hickory (Trolls)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 39





	1. The Two Survivors

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Dry bunker dirt scrubbed his bare feet and tattered shorts. Branch buried his face in his knees, circling his arms around them.

The bergens were supposed to get everybody. Not this. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. The fabric protecting his nose and mouth trapped breathy silent sobs. Hot dampness coated his skin. He didn’t remove the mask.

At first they hadn’t realized this illness was different. A common cold brought by one of the other genres, they thought. But then trolls began dying. The virus didn’t discriminate. Old or young, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, queen or…

He pulled on his ears until pain bloomed, burning the sides of his skull, rushing up the top of his head. His pathetic cry turned into gritted teeth of self-induced torture.

Over an unknown stretch of time Branch remained in the dark pit. Slowly he whittled down to nothing. Bland rations marked days he didn’t bother counting. He wasn’t eating regularly anyway because survival didn’t seem that important. The people dearest to him had been on the frontlines doing all they could. No hug time. No parties.

A tiny hearth fire consumed the pink letter and its words. “Stay in the bunker and wait.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking. This is an order from your queen.”

The second letter burned. There were no more.

In the end, it turned out to be impossible to pause life for two weeks. All it took was one troll to restart the sweep of death. There were too many trolls and too many temptations. The entire world paid the price.

Now he was the only one alive, just like he always imagined.

He lay on the floor barely sensing the dirt. Fire died into cinders. Orange glowing veins turned white. Before the last colors could fade he stumbled up, to the wall. The artwork he tried to lift from the nail clattered to the floor. He picked it up.

One by one Branch burned little pieces of his life. Sketches. Books. Pictures. Poems.

He only realized he’d fallen unconscious when he woke to a black fireplace. Ash spilled from the safe confines of the stone hollow.

BANG BANG BANG

It couldn’t be. The thudding wasn’t the same. But then… who...

BANG!

Muffled shouting accompanied the increasingly desperate pounding. The tone sparked Branch into a shuffling crawl on the floor. Soot smeared his skin. He got to his feet and hobbled to the lift’s control panel. Lack of use caused gears to screech into position. The pad jerked with a loud clunk as he stepped on. When it reached the top a horrid snap froze the platform. Emergency brakes locked in place.

Branch collected the keys to the entrance padlocks. His weakened trembling hands dropped the keyring more than once. Finally the last lock clacked to the stone, dragging the chain with it in a jingling heap. The trapdoor stuck partway and he was too frail to finish the job. He slid a rod into the crack and used it as a lever to force the panel open.

For a minute he crouched in the hole below the rectangle of night sky, shaking, trying to catch thin breaths. The face mask that had long ago rubbed the joins of his ears raw was still secure. Outside a voice called his name.

Branch hauled himself partially out and looked into darkened forest. Far from the hatch stood a yellow troll with… jeans… and… orange hair…

“Hickory,” Branch rasped. His shriveled soul screamed with an emotional torrent pouring into too small a space.

“Branch!” Hickory cried, jolting a step forward on impulse. The tall troll slumped to his knees, hands flying over top of his mouth - or where it would be underneath the red paisley kerchief.

Hickory lived. Branch wasn’t the only survivor.

Tears pricked the corners of Branch’s eyes while he lay halfway outside. The fate of his pop friends was sealed, but Hickory… Branch hadn’t seen or heard from any other genre since the day the borders abruptly closed.

The ordeal had taken a toll on the night-dimmed yellow troll. Patches outlined by Hickory’s fine stitching riddled denim jeans. A tear split his leather vest. Black boots were scuffed. Where the triangular kerchief over Hickory’s face ended hints of an unkempt beard peeked. It seemed the only unravaged thing was the wide-brimmed black stetson gracing fiery hair. Branch didn’t care. Rugged Hickory was the most magnificent being he’d ever laid eyes on.

Not alone. Not alone. Overwhelmed exhaustion crushed Branch’s senses.

“Branch! Branch, stay with me!” Hickory paced at a distance. He leapt for his pack and rifled through it. “How long have you been down there?”

“Dunno.”

“Two weeks with no symptoms? This is important.”

Branch crawled out of the hatch and curled in a fetal position. It felt so cold outside. His mind swirled soupy trying to recall empty ration shelves. “Months.”

Hickory cursed.

“Th’ borders open?” Branch croaked.

“No borders anymore. Came here on foot. You run out of food down there?”

“Elevator’s broken. Stuck.”

Another curse spat from the genrefluid troll. “Save yer energy. I’ll get a fire goin, then I need to wash and I’ll forage somethin to eat n’ drink. I’d share my rations but don’t wanna risk ya getting infected. Keep yer distance in case I’m contaminated.”

Branch didn’t move. He knew he was living on borrowed time with the state he was in. Honestly it seemed fine if he died from the virus. If Hickory had it he’d rather go with him than be left here.

Branch insisted on sharing but Hickory hushed him. “Yer not thinkin right. Don’t argue with me till you got your boots on straight.”

“You’re th’ nly one who wears boots here,” he slurred.

“A-hah. Humor. See you’re feeling better already. Stay conscious. Be back in a jiffy.”

How long was a jiffy? Branch sighed into the mask. Grass pressed to his cheek. Warm fire crackled nearby, lulling his shivers. Before he knew it he had a roasted leaf in front of him. He opened the wrapping to a small portion of hearty steamed veggies from his garden. Spiced scent of fresh herbs smacked his appetite awake.

He ate the first meal with flavor since he could remember, and the first meal with a friend since... he didn’t know.

Hollowness continued to linger in the void of Branch’s heart. Whatever world he’d crawled into was not the one he’d left. The blank space in the question he needed to ask threatened to shatter his soul. Air leaked from his lungs a few times before he managed it.

“How did you know to look for me?”

“Poppy sent a letter before she…” Hickory’s voice tightened. He paused. “Told me to get you when it was safe.”

“It’s safe?”

“No.”

Yet Hickory had come anyway. “Thank you,” Branch whispered.

“Woulda left sooner if I’d known,” was the equally soft response.

Tired beyond reason, Branch curled into a ball and slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of unfinished Trolls fics right now. This one slipped out, mostly because I simply can't NOT publish another thing. If the unpublished pile gets any higher I'll scream.


	2. Take Me Home

Pop Village was eerily silent in the otherwise bright sunshine. Empty pods overrun by creeping vines spanned the distance between those bearing signs of habitance: clothes on lines, brushed wall fibers, presence of helper bugs. This used to be the happiest place on earth.

Hickory tilted his hat to block out the scene passing overhead. Far in front of him a bedraggled, faded marine figure plodded. He dare not let that figure out of his sight.

Hickory thought he’d seen Branch at his worst. He’d witnessed the intensely loyal troll be turned against his own queen via power chord; he’d endured earful after earful of angry insult while seeking forgiveness for the pop string incident; he’d read spirit-shattering sadness of words written when safety of all trolls began to fall apart.

This, though, this was a step apart. The fighting spirit and passion contained in the once-stocky body had been snuffed out. Branch hadn’t cared to clean the scuffs off his skin, brush his hair, or wash his clothes at the river.

It terrified Hickory to see him this way, like a wild bull torn from its herd, broken, and brought to heel pulling plows. Branch’s worn knapsack shifted with each cowed step. The backup pack had been the only item available with the elevator stuck and all the bunker’s emergency exits sealed from inside. Nothing hard work couldn’t fix, but...

“Sure ya don’t wanna stay?” Hickory’d asked after a few days of heartbreaking recovery on the lawn. Branch stared dully at the bunker hatch for a long time.

“There’s nothing left for me here.”

It wasn’t right.

The letter from Ms. Poppy asking him to come get Branch when this was all over… if not for that letter Hickory wasn’t sure he’d have survived this long. Poppy’s request felt like a promise he’d made with her, a promise to pick up the pieces and keep going no matter what. To care for whoever was left. At times that’d been all that kept him going once Delta, and then Dickory…

He trailed behind Branch, making sure not to lose sight even through the blurry haze. The kerchief made sniffling inconvenient. Sorrow sapped out in a long sigh. It wasn’t enough.

“Hickory?...”

He ducked his head so the hat covered his eyes. Red paisley covered despair everywhere else. “S’ nothin.”

Branch’s steps turned to face away again, back to the path. “It’s not nothing,” he grumbled.

Neither of them moved. Hickory’s heart twisted, twisted, twisted. Couldn’t change the past. Couldn’t make the sun stop setting.

“Didn’t get to say goodbye,” Hickory said.

“Me neither.”

Bugsong and forest sounds pervaded as if the village weren’t there at all. Hickory’s ears picked up indistinct chatter from above. The noise grew until one troll’s voice became audible. The woman called out, “Branch? It’s Branch! He’s alive!”

Hair zippily unfurled as a handful of excited trolls in the tree slipped down to the ground. Immediate alarm tensed Hickory so hard he blanked. Squared defensively, he discovered himself a full foot closer to Branch than even the most lax medical guideline required.

“Woah there, easy now fellas.” No way to know if these trolls were safe, even if they claimed to be, even if they thought they were, and even though they wore masks. Worse still, with all the starvin’ Branch had done to himself, his immune system was compromised. The usually cautious troll didn’t seem to give a horse’s tail about how close Hickory or any of the others stood. Concerning.

The hushed, shocked comments rolled in. “He looks terrible. He’s so thin. Oh, Branch…”

Skies above, Hickory loved his pop side as much as all his others, but for once couldn’t they keep their darned honest mouths shut? He stood perfectly still, anxiety climbing as other trolls ringed them in a widely gapped circle.

“Branch, we… we need your help.”

The plea made Hickory wince. They’d come to depend on Branch in an emergency. Too much, too much for even a hero to handle. Poppy must’ve used Branch’s loyalty against him and ordered him to stay home. It was the only logical reason he was still alive.

Branch’s defeated words crucified the hopeful audience. “I... can’t.”

That verbal blow to the gut was somehow worse than the agreement Hickory expected. Branch wasn’t even going to try to protect them. Trolls’ ears sank and colors visibly dimmed.

“But I’m hungry,” a child whimpered. Oh, lord, this is why he tried to avoid the major settlements. It was too difficult to bear. Grim silence stretched the gap after the young’ns comment.

“What happened to the food stores?” Branch finally said.

“Gone. Not enough workers to make more, and handling others’ food is what… is… it...” the speaker’s voice closed off, unable to finish.

“Without the farmers there’s no food,” another said quietly.

Hickory risked a glance away from the potentially dangerous group to Branch. Dark eyebrows furrowed while he sluggishly struggled to comprehend. He was far from healthy and his spirit was broken. The other pop trolls, mired in their own desperation, seemed blind to it. Nobody had seen the shadow who’d crawled up from the grave a few days ago.

Something feral rose in Hickory. It threatened to growl everyone away and get Branch to a safe place with music, compassion, and fellow trolls free from infection.

If only such a place existed.

Branch painstakingly removed his knapsack and knelt in front of it. A ring of keys emerged from the very bottom. He set them on top of a folded square of parchment: a full map of the bunker and all its exits. The priceless schematic could only be meant as an inheritance, a small treasure left behind for whoever held the knapsack.

“You’ll have to break in. It will take a while, but there’s rations. That won’t last. You need to learn to grow food, and to forage. All of the notes on that are in my library. I didn’t…” Branch had to pause to catch his breath and think. “I didn’t burn everything.”

The hairs on Hickory’s flocking prickled with horror.

Branch’s fragile shell cracked. He picked up his pack, leaving the keys and map on the ground. “I want to leave,” he said quietly to the group. “Please.”

Without a word the trolls parted. Strung tight as a wire Hickory walked through the gap, Branch tailing behind him.

They walked.

And they walked.

And they walked.

Hickory didn’t know where they were going. He looked over his shoulder to be sure the footsteps following him were still the same guy. Branch’s gaze chased the ground. The olive green mask couldn’t hide those soulful downcast eyes. For a second they met his then flicked back to grassy plain.

On the whisper of the wind Hickory could hear the murmured words Branch said next. The verse to a particular song. Every few beats his companion struggled through the lyrics under his breath. Not really sung, only spoken.

Hickory reached for his guitar while they plodded onward. The chords came slow, full of grief. Music matched Branch’s words.

In the wilderness the two trolls traveled, single file.

_Country roads, take me home_ _  
_ _To the place I belong_

Branch’s voice picked up. Pain leaked from the words. The sorrow swept Hickory away, pulling all his regrets into reality. The lonely guitar gave them shape and let them blow away on the breeze. Bit by bit each loss drew him into the song until he was no longer aware he was playing at all. The music came straight from the heart.

_Walking down the road, I get a feeling_ _  
_ _That I should've been home yesterday, yesterday…_

They were two wanderers with no home to return to. But Branch was singing, and that’s what counted. He was still singing.

Hickory tilted his head to the sky and let the song take him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll get a nice moment next chapter. It seems like the chapters for this smaller fic will be shorter. I'll admit it's nice to rap one off without 90,000 words of prior plot and a looming ending to consider.


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